Dirk the Daring is a heroic, if clumsy knight. When Princess Daphne was kidnapped by the dragon, Singe, and taken to his castle... Dirk set out to rescue her. Due to a lack of disk and memory space in the systems of the day, the port of the arcade game, Dragon's Lair was split into two parts. The first part covered the half of the game dealing with entering Singe's Castle and saving the Princess. This second part, named Dragon's Lair II: Escape from Singe's Castle completes the game, continuing the adventure of Dirk the Daring after slaying Singe the Dragon.

Dirk the Daring is controlled by the player, who views Dirk's actions on the screen from third-person. The game is reactive and players must press the right controller direction or action button at the right time to have Dirk avoid traps, defeat monsters and otherwise stay alive.